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Plans for the Three Peaks are progressing nicely and last night the steering group met up to start discussing the details for the challenge. I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone for showing an active interest in the Three Peaks and let you know the current developments.

The Plan

We have decided that the best option is to start the challenge in the afternoon of Saturday 21st July at Fort William in Scotland. This is based on sunset falling on Ben Nevis around 22:00 and sunrise at Scarfell around 5am. All guides advise against starting Scarfell before 5am so we have therefore planned our timing on a 5am start in Wasdale Head. The timetable for the weekend will therefore be as follows:

Friday 20th July
Leave Newbury late afternoon and head to the Lake District where we plan an overnight stay. Accommodation is currently being investigated but we are looking at B&B/Youth Hostel options.

Saturday 21st July
Continue our journey to Fort William with the intention of arriving sometime around lunchtime and a visiting the famous Fort William chip shop.

4.00pm - The slow team will leave Fort William and head off to Ben Nevis.
5.30pm - The fast team will leave Fort William and head off to Ben Nevis.

The staggered start is planned so that both teams should be retuning to the minibuses around the same time. After a warm snack (hopefully prepared by the support team) we will depart Fort William and head to Wasdale in the Lake District (approx 260 miles).

Sunday 22nd July
We will depart Wasdale and head for Scarfell at 5am, returning to the minibuses by 9am.

The drive to Llanberis (Snowdon) is expected to take just over 4 hours so we should be starting our ascent to Snowdon around 1.30pm, giving us 4 hours to complete the challenge!

Next Steps

Given the financial commitment to prepare for the Three Peaks we have decided that in order to take part, all participants must pay £30 to reserve their place. As I am sure you will appreciate, we will need to make a number of financial decisions quite quickly (i.e. booking accommodation, minibus hire, fuel costs etc) so we need to know that people are committed to take part - if we hire three minibuses and then a number of people drop out, it will cost us around £500!

We are currently compiling a brief questionnaire, medical disclaimer and information pack that we will have available from Wednesday 18th April. You will need to to complete the form and pay £30 ASAP after this date so that we can start booking the accommodation, deciding the teams etc. The cut off date for the form and money will be Sunday 6th May as the steering group will be meeting again on Tuesday 8h May to start planning the next phase

Training

Training walks are planned to take place every two weeks on a Sunday afternoon - these are open to all. Dates and details of the walks will follow in due course but please note that the first walk will take place on Sunday 15th April from around 3pm.

We are also looking at the option of running weekly circuit training sessions at NBC - details to follow.

Obviously everyone will not be able to make all of the training dates but they will provide a great opportunity to work on our fitness!

Fundraising

The fundraising team have been busy making good progress and we will hear more about that in due course but a date for your diary is Friday 8th June. Newbury Rugby Club has been booked for a fundraising "Summer Ball" evening that will feature the band (Project ThreeSixty), food and an auction - details to follow.

It has also been suggested that we make a small donation to the Mountain Rescue charity.

Support/Misc

Regular updates will be included in the weekly NBC newsletter with prayer requests.

The website/blog is nearly ready.

Well that's it for now...please look out for the introductory forms later this month and make sure that these are returned to us with the £30 fee ASAP.

If you have any questions then please let me (or one of the steering group) know.

Steering Group - Alex Tame, Kate & Dan Ward, Steve Vardy, James Wadham, Bex Bright, Owen Joyce & Paul Davey

Catch you later.

Alex Tame